China

WENCHANG, Hainan,May 7 (Xinhua/APP): The combination of the Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft and a Long March-7 Y5 carrier rocket has been transferred to the launching area of the Wenchang Spacecraft Launch Site, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said Saturday.

The CMSA said the Tianzhou-4 cargo spacecraft will be launched in the near future at an appropriate time.

The facilities and equipment at the launch site are in good condition, and various pre-launch function checks and joint tests will be carried out as planned, the CMSA added.

HONG KONG (AP) — John Lee was elected as Hong Kong’s next leader Sunday, after winning over 99% of votes cast by a largely pro-Beijing election committee.

Lee received 1,416 votes in the chief executive election, far exceeding the 751 votes he needed to win and the highest support ever for the city’s top leadership position. The Election Committee’s nearly 1,500 members cast their votes in a secret ballot Sunday morning.

BEIJING, May 7 (APP): Over 1.25 billion people in China, or 88.74 percent of the country’s total population, had been fully inoculated against COVID-19 as of Thursday, a Chinese health official said at a news briefing.

Beijing, May 6 (PTI) The 2022 Asian Games, which were scheduled to take place in Hangzhou in September, were on Friday postponed amid a surge in COVID-19 cases in China.

According to state-run CGTN TV, the Olympic Council of Asia has postponed the 19th edition of the multi-sports Games, the second biggest sporting event after the Olympics in size.

The Games were scheduled to take place from September 10-25 in the capital of Zhejiang province, about 175 kilometres southwest of Shanghai.

BEIJING, May 6 (APP): Pakistan's export to China crossed $ 1.039 billion in the first quarter of 2022, recording a nearly 17% increase from January to March this year, as per General Administration of Customs of the People Republic of China (GACC).

According to data from GACC, in the first three months of this year, China's exports to Pakistan also increased 28.69 percent amounting to $6.058 billion as compared with the previous year which was $ 4.70 billion.

BEIJING/SHANGHAI, May 6 (Reuters) - Residents of Beijing fretted over anti-virus restrictions curbing their movement while also worrying about the dozens of new COVID-19 cases reported daily, as China's leaders threatened action against critics of their zero-tolerance COVID policy.

Incurring a heavy economic cost and facing rare bursts of public criticism on its tightly-controlled internet, China is increasingly isolating itself from a world in which COVID restrictions are becoming a thing of the past.

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stocks followed Wall Street lower Friday as fears spread that U.S. interest rate hikes to fight inflation might stall economic growth.

Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney declined. Tokyo edged higher as trading resumed after a holiday.

Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index plunged 3.6% on Thursday for its biggest one-day loss in two years as optimism that drove the previous day’s rally evaporated.

BEIJING (AP) — A building collapse one week ago in central China killed 53 people, state media reported Friday as the search of the large pile of debris ended after rescuers found 10 survivors.

Authorities said at a news conference that all the missing had been accounted for as of 3 a.m., state broadcaster CCTV said in an online post.

BEIJING, May 5 (Xinhua) -- Facts have already proved that sanctions cannot bring peace but only make the world economy worse, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said Thursday.

Spokesperson Zhao Lijian also said that the United States, as the world's largest economy, should do more that is conducive to the recovery of the global economy and the stability of the global supply chain.

Zhao made the remarks when asked to comment on report that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently downgraded its 2022 global economic growth forecast to 3.6 percent.

BEIJING (AP) — The death toll jumped Thursday to 26 from the collapse last week of a residential and commercial building in central China, state media reported.

Ten other people have been rescued from the wreckage in the city of Changsha, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The 10th survivor, an unidentified woman, was pulled out shortly after midnight on Thursday, nearly six days after the building suddenly caved in on April 29, Xinhua said. Rescue teams with search dogs have been searching through the rubble since then.